Over the last year, we have been fielding, positioning, and aligning more with Oracle’s new Cloud products. Some of the most common questions we are asked are:

Has Edgewater Ranzal done that before?

What “gotchas” have you encountered in your implementations and how have you addressed them?

What unique offerings do you bring?

These are all smart questions to ask your implementation partner because the answers provide insight into their relevant experience.

Has Edgewater Ranzal done that before?

Edgewater Ranzal is an Oracle PCMCS thought leader and collaborates with Oracle as a Platinum partner to enhance PCMCS with continued development. To date, we’ve completed nearly 20 PCMCS (Cloud) implementations, and almost 80 Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM – on premise) implementations spanning multiple continents, time zones, and industries. Our clients gladly provide references for us which is a testament to our success and abilities. Additionally, we frequently have repeat clients and team up with numerous clients to present at various conferences to share their successes.

As a thought leader in the industry and for PCMCS, we sponsor multiple initiatives that deliver implementation accelerators, test the latest product enhancements prior to their release, and work in tandem with Oracle to enhance the capabilities of PCMCS.

Now let’s explore some of the data integration challenges one might unexpectedly encounter and the intellectual property (IP) Ranzal offers to mitigate these and other data integration challenges that lurk.

What gotchas have you encountered in your implementations and how do you mitigate them?

We could go into great depth when detailing the PROs for using FDMEE with PCMCS…but it is much more beneficial to instead share some of the other less obvious discoveries made. Note that we work directly and continuously with Oracle to improve the product offering.

Extracting data via FDMEE data-sync is challenging. The size of the data cube and configuration settings of PCMCS has a threshold limit – 5,000,000 records and a 1GB file size – both of which are quite often reached. As a result, we have developed a custom solution for the data-sync routine.

Large datasets directly into PCMCS via DM (Cloud-based Data Management) can exhibit performance problems due to the server resources available in the Cloud. Functionality in on-premise FDMEE (scripting, Group-By, etc.) helps reduce the number of records going into the Cloud and therefore provides a performance gain.

Patching to the latest FDMEE patch set is crucial. Cloud applications (PCMCS, FCCS, E/PBCS) update monthly. As a result, we need to consistently check/monitor for FDMEE patches. These patches help ensure that canned integrations from Oracle are top-notch.

Executing two or more jobs concurrently via EPMAutomate is quite troublesome due to the workflows needed and how EPMAutomate is designed. As a result, we have invested considerable time into cURL and RESTful routines. We discovered that the login/logout commands are tied to the machine, not the user-process, so any logout from another executing run logs out all sessions.

The use of EPMAutomate is sometimes difficult. It requires a toolset on a PC – “JumpBox” – or on-premise EPM servers. It also requires the use of .BAT files or other scripted means. By using FDMEE, the natural ease of the GUI improves the end-user experience.

Loading data in parallel via FDMEE or DM can cause Essbase Load Rule contention due to how the automatic Essbase load rules are generated by the system. Oracle has made every effort to resolve this before the next Cloud release. Stay tuned… this may be resolved in the next maintenance cycle of PCMCS (18.10) and then the on-premise update of patch-set update 230.

We all know that folks (mainly consultants) are always looking to work around issues encountered and come up with creative ways to build/deliver new software solutions. But the real question that needs to be asked is: Should we? Since FDMEE has most of the solutions already packaged up, that would be the best tool for the job. The value that FDMEE can bring is scores better than any home-grown solution.

What unique offerings do you bring?

At Edgewater Ranzal, we have started to take some of our on-premise framework and adopt it for PCMCS. Some of the key benefits and highlights we provide are:

To combat the complications with loading data via FDMEE because of FDMEE’s inability to execute PCMCS clears out-of-the-box, we have added the functionality into the Ranzal IP catalog and can deploy this consistently for our clients. This is done via the RESTful functionality of PCMCS. Some of the items we have developed using REST are:

Import/export mappings

Execute data load rules or batch jobs from 3rd party schedulers

Refresh metadata in the Cloud

Augment EPMAutomate for enhanced flexibility

Execute business rules/clear POV commands as part of the FDMEE workflow

Execute stored procedures (PL/SQL) against DBaaS (see below)

Enhanced validation framework (see below)

We have redeveloped our Essbase Enhanced Validate to function with the PCMCS Cloud application. FDMEE on-premise can now validate all the mapped data prior to loading. This is great for making sure data is accurate before loading.

The Edgewater Ranzal tool-kip for FDMEE includes the ability to connect to other Cloud offerings for data movements, including DBaaS and OAC.

Can FDMEE do that…and should FDMEE do that?

Yes, you should use FDMEE to load to PCMCS, and it is an out-of-the-box functionality! As you can see, unlike DM whose feature comparison to FDMEE will be discussed in a later blog and white-paper, there are a lot of added benefits. The current release of FDMEE v11.1.2.4.220 provides product functionality enhancements and has greater stability for integrations with most Cloud products. Suffice it to say, having python scripting available and server-side processing for large files will greatly enhance your performance experience.

Contact us at info@ranzal.com with questions about this product or its capabilities.